Despite an amusing Pierre Poutine moment before it started, the Wildrose Party's one-day annual general meeting in Edmonton yesterday seems to have gone swimmingly for Leader Danielle Smith, whose key messages were transmitted uncritically by media and apparently accepted in a similar spirit by members.

Reading between the lines of the media coverage, Smith's three main points to her right-wing supporters were as follows:

1)    Bozo eruptions by bad candidates, not Wildrose policies, caused the party's election loss on April 23

2)    Nothing substantive in the Wildrose economic agenda needs to change, but the party may have to be sneakier about some of its members' social conservative views

I don't know about you, but a lot of Albertans are surely going to have trouble sleeping tonight when they realize their province is no longer rat free. Presumably a sales tax could be next!

This has been a lousy couple of summer weeks for Premier Alison Redford's government, what with all the health executive pension plans and whatnot becoming public, but this rat report has got to be the topper. Well, look at the bright side: it's a break from a steady drumbeat of health-care disasters -- at least until someone asks Alberta Health Services if we have a Plague Plan!